Prospero fished in her pocket for the silken bag she’d picked up at Howie’s den. Without looking, she couldn’t be sure which stone she grabbed. It didn’t matter, though. Fatal or not, the stone would stop Agnes or it would slow her down.
If I can grab her, I can teleport her to Crenshaw.
Fuck the witnesses.
Fuck the rules.
“How long were you her lapdog, Sondre?” Aggie’s voice soundedmore hurt than angry. “Telling us you were on our side and carrying everything back to that bitch… Tell me: did you laugh at us? Mock us?”
“It wasn’t like that.…” Sondre was telling the truth. Prospero could hear it, any witch could. Lies felt wrong. So that ought to have been enough answer to buy time.
It wasn’t.
The staff in Aggie’s hand writhed like the serpent it could become. A glint of eyes peered through the wood, and Sondre stared at them. He had a strange fear of slithering things, which Aggie surely knew. He’d nearly died from a snakebite; it was how he’d become a witch.
“Just biding your time to steal House Grendel, then,” Aggie continued. “Was that it? You thought you could take what’s mine?”
“Aggie… Grendel is… was… I had no eyes on taking the house.” Sondre had spent his entire witchhood under Agnes’ foot. He motioned to multiple fights in the courtyard outside the shops. “You see the way they react to your magic. You’releakingit.”
He took his gaze off her, gesturing to several more fights and outbursts. One woman in beige trousers and a blue blouse had picked up a chair. As Prospero glanced at her, the woman tossed the chair into a shop window. Glass and the tower of sunglasses in the display rained down.
“Weak-willed sheep.” Aggie’s mouth twisted in disgust. “It’s no fault of mine that they let their rage out. Violence simplyis.Look at this world. Look at yourself.” She laughed, sounding a little crazed. “How many bar brawls have you begun, boy? Violence is anecessity.”
It’s not,Prospero thought, but she didn’t speak the words. She was willing to let Sondre have a chance at talking to Agnes. That wasn’t Prospero’s preference, but she could understand his urge to do so.
“Come home with us. We can work this out.” Sondre stepped closer, and Agnes pivoted.
“So that old man can badger me?” Agnes eyed Sondre. “Did I teach you nothing? Do I look like I’ll surrender? I won’t go back there to be reduced.…”
Prospero couldn’t disagree with that impulse. Being badgered, being a small mustelid that was left lapping mead from the tavern floor, was no fate for a warrior. She’d rather die than be left as an object of scorn or pity again. Agnes made more sense to her than Prospero liked.
Sondre held out his hands in a placating gesture as he took another step forward. “You know I mean you no harm, Mother Grendel. We were wrong about magic in this world. It’s not harmless… and…”
Prospero rolled her eyes. She still couldn’t get the attention of the older witch long enough to slip into her mind.One moment,Prospero thought as she stared at her.I just need one moment to connect to her mind.
Casually, Prospero rolled the stone in her hand.Not knowing what it would do wasn’t that irresponsible, was it?Agnes had shot Scylla. She was making all these people fill with rage and destruction.Aren’t I entitled to lash out?A lifetime of propriety, of keeping her feelings in order, of restraining herself seemed to be filtering away.
My anger is justified.
Attacking her is better than standing here.
I should just—
Then Aggie glanced at her and winked. “You feel it, don’t you? Remember how he beat you? How he killed her… what was her name? The one you love?”
“Ellie,” Prospero whispered. She could see her beloved on the floor now. Her eyes were staring at nothing. Her mouth was open as if to speak. He’d killed her. Her only crime was that Prospero was falling in love with her. That was the fate of women like them: be miserable or be dead. To be hated for being born as a person who loved women made no sense, and yet that was her fate.
Ellie wasn’t born when I was,Prospero thought briefly, but her mind’s eye saw her there. Her neck was twisted unnaturally, and her eyes were sightless.He killed my Ellie. She didn’t even really love me. We didn’t have time. And now she’s dead.
“You killed her.” Prospero looked at her husband, standing there like he had the right to dole out deaths. “Wasn’t breaking me enough?”
“Prospero…” Sondre reached out. “Come on. She’s lying. Shake it off.”
“Because it’s so hard for you to think someone could love me?” Prospero felt tears on her cheeks, or maybe it was blood. Sometimes she couldn’t tell. He beat her so often that it could be either one. She stared at him as he menaced her and said, “Just because you couldn’t love me, that doesn’t make me unlovable.”
“I’m not him.” Her husband’s voice sounded wrong.
Prospero closed her eyes tightly. Her head throbbed, probably from being hit so often.
